Bandits first pillow pee

[BanditCamp]

Edit note: I understand thisnisnt a dominance game as referenced in later posts, please be kind and for orgionalitiws purpose I’ll leave the original message up but know that I wrote this when I was very tired.

So it’s currently 4 am for me, I want to say first that bandit has PERFECT litter habits and I understand that him peeing on my bed (pillow while I was sleeping on it) is a way of saying ‘this is mine now’. Just want to make sure I’m doing the dominance portion right. He’s basically a free roam bunny and locked if I can’t overtly watch him over longer than 3-4 hours this isn’t more of a question on how to stop it but making sure I’m doing the right steps. He’s currently 3 months 11 days which means I can expect this for another 2ish months of him wanting to mark territory perfect timing when o was sleeping. So when I woke up and discovered his smell very strongly next to me on my pillow I placed him in his cage and cleaned the pillows in the washer along with the whole bedding (next day planned to not disturb neighbors) and I’m going to buy a mattress protector now as well to be extra careful. After I placed him inside he threw a little fit but I ignored him to show that I was in charge and in about an hour I’m going to let him out and close off my room to reduce space for awhile. Since I don’t want to ruin his free roam habits does anyone think I should lock him him at night again or is it more of a not enough litter boxes situation? Cause I have two boxes total and he knows where both are and only does business in one and lounges in the other

In short:

Teen rabbit peed on pillow near me for first time.

Placed him in cage after incident (he threw A fit [bar chewing] I let him out later)

Cleaned pillows and bedding (neutralizing area)

Probably going to let him out after an hour or so.

Am I doing anything wrong or am I enforcing actions correctly?

[Muchelle]

If he disturbs your sleep (peeing near face seems a good reason to be disturbed), I’d let him sleep in his cage/pen at night. He could still make a holy mess in there and disturb you anyways if he’s housed in your bedroom but at least you’d be dry He won’t care much once he gets that night = sleep.

My cousin’s guinea pig ruined his teeth by cage biting, so whenever K gets the idea that biting the bars is fun to do I spray him with a nebulizer and don’t give him treats or scratches for about 15-20 mins afterwards. So far he seems to get that’s a no-no.

I’m afraid about the peeing there’s little you can do cause it should be a hormone-venting thing (so they either hump stuff or mark territory). If it’s that, he can’t really help doing it (ever watched that episode of the Simpsons when Lisa sprays Mike Tyson with the bully attractor and the bully starts punching him while crying and begging for pardon? XD that was exactly Kuro when peeing on my couch as a teen. He knew he shouldn’t but he did it anyways, with a terror look in his eyes ahahah)

[BanditCamp]

Yeah I know it’s a hormone thing. He’s just starting his teen months, he doesn’t chew the bars he just shakes it. As for the spraying I don’t want to actually spray him with water or a chemical as I want him to be a free roam bunny and I’m more worried that the bottle will encourage more bad than good habbits.

[sarahthegemini]

I don’t understand what you mean by wanting to ensure you’re top bun?

[BanditCamp]

Basically what I’ve read is that when rabbits enter teen years and especially when your a solo bun owner he might try and change is place in the hiarchy since your the only other ‘bun’ (human) in the house.

Since I interact with him almost exclusively with my brother now and then he’s doing a dominance display by putting his scent on something that smells excessively like me (bed) but a couple different sources either say it’s to mark a shared space or to try and play conquorer bunny and claim a new space. Since this is his first accident after nearly 2 months of ownership I’m assuming it’s the latter and a dominance display to test the waters a bit.

I’ve basically been up since four am and limited his morning play to the living room while washing the pillows and sheets (He peed on the pillows next to my head while I was sleeping and it woke me up) then I moved him to his cage in the living room and locked him for about an hour.

[vanessa]

I have to disagree here… I don’t believe it is dominance. I also agree with Sarahthegemini – who cares whether he thinks he or you are dominant. You are the human – therefore you are dominant. I don’t think that should have any part in it. When we try to prove ur dominance to our bunnie,s I think we are missing the mark.
As for peeing on the pillow – some bunnies like to pee on soft things – period. Nothing to do with dominance – everything to do with feeling good. Restrict his access to your bed, or he will continue. I don’t think it has anything to do with hormones. I have 2 bunnies who don’t pee on soft things, and 2 who do. I have yet to hear of someone who ha successfully taught their bunny not to pee on the bed/couch. So putting him on time-out in his cage won’t achieve anything in my opinion. He had his pleasure – he got to pee on something soft and comfy. And he’ll do it again.

Can you give him free roam while restricting access to your bed? Put up a baby gate at your bedroom? barricade your bed?

[BanditCamp]

My bed sits quite high and there’s a box that he jumps on as a mid step. To reduce the strain of jumping too high, however, he can jump on top if he’s in zoomy mode and using his speed to propell him but from a standing position I haven’t seen him do it.

I’m keeping a closer eye on him for today but ill remove the box so he cant free jump there and see what happens. The information I got with the dominance is from the house rabbit society and Behavior motivated by social structure read.

[vanessa]

Yeah – I’ve read some funky things. Even in dog circles – there seems to be this thing people (authors/animal behaviorists) latch onto about animal dominance – for example – “don’t let your dog walk ahead of you on a leash – he is showing his dominance”. Garbage. Dogs just naturally have a faster pace then we do, and they get exited and want to charge ahead. I let my dogs walk ahead of me on a retractable leash, and they sure as hell know who is dominant. They do a very good German Schutzhund heel routine, but leash walks are for them to enjoy, not for me to feel dominant. It’s the same with rabbits – I’ve read articles on when a rabbit is trying to show it’s dominance over us, and I disagree. I think they are doing what feels instinctual and good. Nothing to do with dominance. Guinevere nips me to demand attention, Lancelot pushes my hand up to demand further petting. I don’t consider that dominance either. Just their way of communicating. They know that I’m boss. If she really felt dominant, she wouldn’t run and hide when it’s time to trim her nails, etc.
When I read animal behavior articles – I think very carefully about the biology of the animal – not just our human anthropomorphic view of what we believe to be the social structure of groups of animals.

[vanessa]

Hey sorry if I came across as harsh… I just read an email response from my vet and I didn’t like it. I was feeling a bit judged. So sorry if I came across as snappy.

[BanditCamp]

I’m a former soldier, unless I hear ‘shots fired’ I’m pretty much ok. I agree with the behavior thing that people have can be ridiculous and anthro I just am technically new to ownership and I know how territorial buns can get so I treat rabbits different than my opinions from dogs or cats.

[vanessa]

🙂

[Hazel]

I think you should let go of the notion that you have to be top bun/show him you are top bun. That’s what you might do with a dog, but owning a bun isn’t about dominating them. We are called “bunny slaves” for a reason. He’s growing into a teenage bunny, and probably getting hormonal. Marking is a very normal thing for a maturing bun to do. It doesn’t have to have anything to do with you, he’s not looking at you thinking “I’ll show that human what’s what!”, he’s doing it because his instinct tells him to. He doesn’t have an agenda. If he was the only living thing on the planet you can be sure he would still mark, it’s just what they do. As has been said, many bunnies simply like to go on soft surfaces, especially if they smell like us. He might have actually tried to mark you, meaning you are his favorite person. There could be several reasons why he did this, but I wouldn’t call this a dominance issue. Also, rabbits don’t usually respond to punishment. As I said, marking is totally normal bunny behavior, and he won’t look at it as being naughty. Thus he won’t understand why you are punishing him. He’s as likely to connect the time out with scratching his ear as to peeing on your pillow. Even if he did know why he’s being punished, it likely wouldn’t have the effect you want. They don’t care if we are unhappy with what they do, and putting him in time put is going to do nothing but make him resentful. Try to manage things until you can get him fixed, and he will eventually return to normal. There is no need for a human/bunny turf war, neither one of you would walk away happy from that.
Buns are by nature dominant, they think they’re at the top unless someone else fights them for it. I’ve never seen or heard of a bun that thought it was lower ranking than their human. We do things all the time that our bunnies would look at as us acting like we’re beneath them in the pecking order. Petting/brushing them (dominant buns get groomed, that makes the human subordinate), feeding them (only a subordinate bun would allow another to take food away from them), I could go on. Doing these things and at the same time trying to fight your bun for dominance wouldn’t work and would probably hurt your relationship.
I wouldn’t worry about it too much, things will get better once he’s neutered!

[Mikey]

Its not dominance, but it is territory. He is claiming your pillow, because he likes it. But its not him going “I need to pee on your things because Im alpha over you”. But are much more simple Think of human + bun relationships similar to toddler + adult. If a toddler wants something, theyll try to take it. When a bunny wants something, theyll try to mark it. Neither has to do with dominance, but instead “I want”s. Even with other bunnies, marking is more of “this is mine”, not “Im alpha”. Even if he mounts you repeatedly, chances are, hes not trying to be dominant, he just wants to mate with you, lol

When a bun territory marks, you put them away and clean up after them. Maybe leave them put away a little longer after the mess is cleaned to ensure the smell of the area is gone so they dont feel tempted to do it again. Ignoring them when they throw a tantrum is good, too. If you give in while tantrums are being thrown, you could easily accidentally train them that tantrums = coddling. So, what you did after you noticed his mark is good

Since hormones have started to kick in, you might want to start restricting his free space while youre asleep. It may start with pee marking, but it could easily end in a trashed room

[Q8bunny]

This is coming from long conversations with a (now retired) vet who made buns her life’s work: humans and buns do not inhabit the same chain/hierarchy. So you’ll never be able to assert dominance and be ‘top bun’ because you’re not… a bun.

Bandit is a hormonal teen now. He will mark when he gets the urge to mark. You could contain him while you sleep/are away, but he may still spray through the bars or mark during free roam time. Or you could neuter him before he establishes marking as a behaviour and not just as a hormonal imperative (which can happen and is not unusual in unneutered boy buns).

Either way, you can’t break the “habit” via negative or positive reinforcement because you’re battling hormones.

[BanditCamp]

Yeah I’d change the topic title if o could, bit I understand that from Vanessa. He’s doing really good now I’ve decided to wait a bit longer to free roam him but he will still get whole apartment time when able. He was lying on the bed all day today no problems after I washed everything. I think it was a more I love you thing cause today for the first time he flopped on my side while I was laying down on my stomach watching Netflix and my heart almost broke.

I think once I get to a more stable home and can dedicate a room for him I’ll be able to free roam but the apartment is too smallish for me to keep him from doing things he wants to do. Like chew a small quarter size hole in my couch pillow for fun.

I appreciate all the advice regardless

[Mikey]

It very well couldve been an “I love you” thing! My Bombur used to pee in my lap after falling asleep on me when he was younger. Congrats on the flopping

[Q8bunny]

Cute Buddy flops are so sweet

[vanessa]

You actually can change the title. Try it from your profile. Go to your topics started. Not from the forum list.

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